President Trump is right, the US armed forces are the best equipped, best trained, and most effective in the world. Watching the American military machine in full operation is awesome and unforgettable. If it’s now turned against Iran, with an assault on one of the rocky islands in the Gulf, surely America must be totally victorious?
Yet that’s not the way it’s been. Post-1945, the American military’s only successful outings have been small butcher-and-bolt operations against infinitely weaker countries: Grenada in 1983, the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011, the capture of Maduro in Venezuela in January. Full-scale wars (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) haven’t gone so well. These countries were no match for the US, but they hung on and refused to give up, and eventually the US had to get out. It’s strategic jujitsu: the smaller fighter uses the weight of his far more powerful opponent to land him on the mat.
America loses long wars because it operates against its own interests. The Pentagon demands gigantic build-ups costing billions, the generals never seem prepared for what happens after phase one, the soldiers are far too keen to kill people — not just enemy soldiers but enemy civilians. Soon, American public opinion starts turning against huge, expensive, open-ended commitments, and if there are excesses like the massacre at My Lai in 1968 or the torture at Abu Ghraib in 2003, the process goes into overdrive. At some stage, the president of the day is forced to decide that enough is enough, and another asymmetrical war is won by a puny opponent. Size, power, organisational and technological superiority are magnificent qualities, but they’re no match for grit, determination, and a control over public opinion which no democracy can match. To be successful, America’s wars have to be fought against the right kind of opponent.
I’ve seen what happens if they’re not. In April 2003, still recovering from our wounds, my producer Tom Giles (now the controller of current affairs at ITV) and I headed down from northern Iraq to Baghdad. A few days earlier we had joined an American military convoy of 30 Humvees, all flying big US flags. When the convoy stopped, a US navy pilot circled above us at 500ft for half an hour. Finally he decided that the gathering must be an Iraqi army force, and he dropped a 1,000lb bomb right in the middle of us.
My BBC team and I were standing only a few paces away from the spot where the bomb landed. Tom’s life was saved by his mother, who called at that precise moment to wish him a happy birthday; he moved away to get a better signal. I was standing next to our translator, whose feet were sheared off by a piece of the bomb casing as it exploded. He died of blood loss. Many of the other 16 who died were burned alive. I lost the hearing of one ear and was hit by dozens of bits of shrapnel.
Simpson, the BBC’s world affairs editor, believes America loses long wars because it operates against its own interests (Photo: Getty)A few days later, Tom and I reached Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit as it fell to the Americans. We linked up with a US platoon, jittery and trigger-happy. “Sniper!” shouted a soldier, pointing to a nearby rooftop, where an old man was pinning a carpet on to a clothesline. I was carrying a walking-stick because of my injuries, and whacked the soldier with it to stop him shooting. Then I looked across at the lieutenant patrolling with us. He smiled and shrugged, like the parent of an ill-behaved kid: “I know, but what can I do?” said the look. If the soldier had killed the old man, no action would have been taken; he’d have said he thought his life was in danger, and that would have been that. No inquiry was held into the dropping of the 1,000lb bomb on the American convoy we were with, either. The pilot was flying missions again the following day.
Now, a generation on, President Trump is considering invading Iran. The same kind of nervous, unrestrained soldiers will invade enemy territory. The longer they stay, the more damage they will do; and the more opinion at home, already hostile to the war, will turn against it even more. Capturing Kharg Island wouldn’t be a quick in-and-out; if it were, it wouldn’t achieve what President Trump needs — the throttling of Iran’s economy, to the point where it accepts his maximalist demands. Iran is big, thoroughly prepared for an invasion and up for a fight. It will do everything it can to hold on, because it knows this is the way to beat the mighty United States.
Maybe it won’t happen like this. But if it does, a well-trodden path to defeat lies ahead of the United States. Donald Trump shows absolutely no sign that he realises he’s got to avoid it.
John Simpson is the BBC’s world affairs editor. His weekly BBC Two programme, Unspun World, returns in April.
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